One Dead Lawyer (2 page)
Authors: Tony Lindsay
Back in the Caddy I've got the air blasting. A brother broke out in a sweat just that fast and wasn't out three minutes. Sitting in front of the trailer stand wolfing down my Polishes, I watch the four kids counting the change. They scream in happiness and run back to Roosevelt. The money must have made their day.
I need to be calling Carol, my business partner, to check in and explain to her what happened; however, that's not where my head is right now. Besides, she is surely going to want to talk about the murders, and my heart is not up to it.
I throw the fries out the window to the begging common snipes. For most of my life I called these large birds seagulls, but when I took Chester to the zoo last week I read on one of the plaques that they were named common snipes. You can learn something every day if you're looking.
I wash the Polish sausages down with two pops, stuff the empty cans in the brown paper sack my lunch came in and resist the temptation to throw it out the window. After all, it would only be adding to the litter all about the trailer stand. A UPS truck pulls alongside me and blocks my exit. It doesn't anger me because I'm in no hurry to correct my mistake. I shouldn't have gone to see Attorney Peal.
I screwed up Regina and Ricky's plan big-time, and since I was the one who aborted it, it's up to me to set it back in motion. My job was to motivate Randolph Peal's ex-wife into going to the police against her murdering ex-husband. I was to go see her, not him, but the murders got me to seeing red and I had to get with Peal. It's like Ricky said: I've got to stop thinking with my heart.
The UPS driver buys a sack of sandwiches. He walks in front of my Caddy and purposely avoids looking at me because he knows he had my car blocked in. With the truck gone I have a clear shot to the expressway's on ramp.
The small traffic light on the ramp stops me from merging immediately. This makes absolutely no sense to me. A traffic light on an expressway rampâwhy stop a vehicle that needs to gain speed to merge? It's ludicrous. The flow of traffic is light heading south, and that's a good thing; it shouldn't take me more than forty minutes to get out to the attorney's ex-wife's estate.
This whole sad affair started out as a favor to Regina. It was her girlfriend Daphne's son I was supposed to keep safe. The young man was involved in much more than a threat from a gang selling crack cocaine, which is the lie he told his mama. In the beginning I thought it was a simple enough protection case, a middle-class kid trying to play thug who got in over his head and ran back home to his mama for safety. But I was wrong, dead wrong.
Chapter Two
Three nights ago I was at home in a laid-back mode. It was muggy outside, but the central air had the place feeling crisp and the new housekeeping service had put fresh sheets on my high-post bed. I was apprehensive about getting a housekeeping service because it felt like I was frontin' or something, acting the part of a big shot, but a brother really needed some help; somebody to cook, wash and clean up; somebody who did it better than me. I could never really get the place clean like it was supposed to be. Sure I mopped the floors and washed the dishes, but the dishes stayed in the rack on the counter, and my oven and microwave were biohazard zones. I don't do household chores well.
About two months ago I was flipping through the newspaper and saw an ad for a household-management service. For a monthly fee, one that I now feel is way less than what I should pay for the services, they take care of everything. They vacuum, mop floors, clean windows, wash dishes, cook three good meals a week and do the laundry. I do, however, wash my own underwear, some things others shouldn't do for you.
They put out fresh towels in the bathroom and clean sheets on my bed. The service is great. I'm gone most mornings so I hardly ever see them working, which is cool because I still feel a little guilty about having people cleaning my house. However, when I enter my home, the place is neat and clean and I love it all the more. It's as clean as my grandmother used to keep it, which is how a house is supposed to look.
That night I was stretched out on my bed in a pair of Nike baggy shorts with two big pillows behind my back and The Matrix playing in my bedroom DVD player. I'd left Chester and Regina a couple of hours ago, but I was missing them. Mostly I was missing Regina.
Although we had spent a lot of time together, I had made no deliberate romantic advances toward her. My plan was to show her that I was ready to be the man she needed. Actions speak louder than words.
I started doing the tasks around her house that a husband would do: washing her car, cutting the grass, barbecuing, fixing the lose doorknobs, stopping running toilets, organizing the garageâand I paid a couple of her monthly bills while knowing full well the alimony the courts had me send covered most of her house expenses. I wanted her to get used to having me around again. I made myself available whenever she needed me.
During our small talk, we spoke around the past and never of the future. We conversed on the moment. We'd had a couple of innocent bumps and slight physical touches here and there, but nothing intentional on either of our behalfs until that afternoon.
On the way from the grocery store she held my hand on the drive to her house. And after dinner we were washing the dishes and while standing at the sink I had to wrap around her to reach up to the cabinet, she didn't withdraw when my body leaned into her. In a matter of seconds my jones was as hard as an old oak. When she felt my firmness she stepped away.
I hadn't been with a woman for over four months, and that had been of my own choosing. After messing up with Regina once, if there was any chance of us getting back together I didn't want to be the one at fault if it didn't happen. I wanted my desires to be centered on her and that plan of action was working for me because a brother wanted her bad. When the thought of sex entered my mind, I saw Regina. That night stretched out in my bed, I was thinking about Regina and sex.
My mind floated back to the times when we used to lay up and watch movies in the bedroom. We seldom finished watching a movie. Back then, our bodies couldn't lay next to each other without joining.
I was laying there remembering our healthy sexual life when her phone call came in. She said she needed to see me right then. I thought we were on the same accord because I sho' needed to see her right then as well. I slid into a white mesh T-shirt and some flip-flop sandals. All I grabbed were my car keys.
My plan was as soon as she opened the door I was going to get started: no words, only hot kisses and caresses. When she opened her front door, I got one hot kiss in before she pushed me back. For a second I felt her clinging to me. I felt her wanting me, but only for a second. Once she pushed me back her words let me know that I was the only one going down memory lane to our once-shared passion.
She was dressed in jeans and a white oxford shirt and it was buttoned to the collar. Out of my embrace, her demeanor was stern.
“David, I believe you misinterpreted my call.”
She wasn't smiling. She wasn't teasing. She was informing me of a fact.
What was stiff on me subsided. This was not a booty call.
“I felt you were getting the wrong message from our time together. Please come into the living room and let's talk.”
“The wrong message”âman, I was ready to leave and I guess my expression told her that because she added another, “Please.”
I followed behind her, watching her narrow hips in those tight jeans, thinking about how difficult it used to be for her to get out of them. She offered me a seat on the beige leather sofa I bought when we were married. She sat across from me in an armchair I'd never seen before.
The decor of the living room hadn't changed much from the time when we were a family. The tall gold lamps were the same, but the coffee and end tables along with the light gray carpet were different. While visiting with Chester, most of my time in the house was spent either in his room or the den.
Both lamps were on and the room was bright. It didn't feel like twelve-thirty at night, and I suddenly felt under-dressed in my shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops. She scooped up a manila folder from the coffee table and began.
“David, we have both started new lives apart.”
I didn't like the sound of her statement, but looking at her soft hair, combed back and hanging down on her long, slender neck, I ignored the tone and for a moment went down memory lane again. I used to love kissing her neck.
“It's never easy to start over, David, but we both have done it. We have actually done better apart than we did together. I would have never thought your protection business would have grown as successful as it is now. If we were together I believe my doubt would have hindered its growth.”
I nodded my head in agreement. When we were married she wanted me to stay in mental health and go back to school and get a master's in counseling, even though I told her I hated the field. That was a constant argument between us.
“You have always been a trailblazer, David, following your own path, doing things your way and thinking your own way. My Lord, there is no way I would have agreed with rehabbing your grandmother's house, especially in that neighborhood. No, there was no way if we were together I would have gone for that. Englewood, my God, but Martha tells me it's beautiful. And she tells me you and Ricky have been rehabbing houses out in Gary, Indiana too. Goodness, I thought that little African American city was gone under, but I read they elected a white mayor years ago. So perhaps they might find direction.”
We had been talking for just a minute and I sensed no good was going to come from this conversation. She was letting out the part of her personality I detestedâthe part that believed white people always did and knew better than our own people. When we were married, any tradesman or repairman who came to our house had to be white. This was another constant argument between us.
Regina was an African American girl raised in the rich suburb of Glenco. Despite her best effort not to be, she was a bourgeoisie. When we were dating it was the part of her personality she talked about changing. She once told me her greatest fear was becoming like her mother. In her words, her mother was “a black woman who enjoyed the fact that her father's money kept her from being a common black woman.”
Regina desired to be a regular sister in the struggle, one who worked to make ends meet. But she wasn't. Her folks had serious loot. Not that her mother ever gave us a dime when we were married, because she didn't. Marrying me put Regina in the day-to-day struggle she wanted to be part of. When we met, independence from her mother and her mother's money was important to her. She wanted to make it on her own.
Her mother made it clear that if she married me we weren't to expect any assistance from her. Which was funny to me, because coming from a black working-class family I didn't expect anybody to help us but us. Nor did I have an idea of what their help would consist of; had I understood wealth, I might have tried to work something out.
Regina's cousins who married in favor of their family's wishes received full stock portfolios, income property, employment offers from friends of the family, monthly trust-fund checks and financial advice from folks with money.
When we got married I figured our degrees and our desire to succeed would be all we needed. I was right, but the money wouldn't have hurt us one bit. Where we were working to get were her cousins' starting points. When we were worried about getting approved for an apartment, they were applying for a mortgage. When we were starting a joint checking account, they were diversifying. I had no idea how far behind her pack we were and if she knew she never spoke of it to me.
“David, I have sold this house and put a down payment on one of the new homes being built on Clark Street. We will be able to move in in less than a month.” She paused and looked at me with concern I hadn't seen in her eyes in years. “I truly hope you are not too upset about this. As you know, the house was mine through the divorce, and I have the right to do with it as I see fit.”
I said nothing, letting her continue.
“Mother's lawyers assured me it was all legal and my pastor assured me that I wasn't doing you a disservice by using the home this way.”
“Your pastor? You're kidding right?” It came out with more of a sarcastic overtone than I intended. At the end of our tattered marriage I caught Regina in a hotel with her/our pastor.
She rolled her emerald eyes at me and said, “I changed churches, David. The man I was with in the hotel is no longer my spiritual advisor.”
“I'm glad.”
At that point two emotions were colliding in my head, anger and disappointment: anger from her past cheating and disappointment over the fact that it wasn't a booty call that had me in her house.
“Shall we return to the topic at hand?” She brushed aside her infidelity so easily she might have been discussing a knitting technique. “Selling this house freed up so much capital, David, and with a little help from Mother, I was able to secure the loan at a very low rate. You have to understand, David, next year Chester will be starting preschool and the nanny service Mother recommended doesn't travel this far south.
“Living in a better-populated area will benefit him greatly. You couldn't have thought I was going to continue to raise him in Harvey? Why just last week they arrested two boys on the corner for selling some type of drug. I don't want my son exposed to dangers I can prevent. Say something, David.”
Say something? As far as the house went, I had put it out of my mind after the divorce; it was hers. Rationally, I wasn't upset by anything she had said so far. A better area, a better school, all this was good for my son.
Then the thought entered my mind that maybe her plan was for “us” to move downtown. She mentioned me moving downtown before; perhaps she was testing the waters. I might have been able to stomach living in the loop if I had my family back in place. I began to feel hopeful; the anger and disappointment went away.
“Regina, I see nothing wrong with your plans. Of course I'm a little surprised, but I understand your concerns. You want the best for Chester, and so do I.”
Her face relaxed, and she smiled.
“Yes, I do want what's best for Chester. David, are you seeing anyone? Someone special, I mean.”
At that point I was certain the conversation had turned my way.
“No, baby, after I got out of the hospital I spent most of my free time here with you and Chester.”
Between work and her and Chester, how could I be seeing someone? She had to know that.
“Yes, I thought that was the case, and I knew I was being slightly dishonest by not telling you that I am seeing someone. Someone special, I mean.”
I heard her with my ears, but it didn't register in my brain. She couldn't have said she was seeing someone, someone special. Who, how, and when? Did he sneak over after I left?
“I didn't tell him until yesterday about our time together. Oh God, I don't know what I was thinking. Part of me was trapped in thoughts of perhaps there was a chance at an âus,' but there is far too much water under that bridge.”
I was confusedâno, dazed. It didn't sound like she had plans for me moving downtown with her and Chester. She was laying her cards on the table. I scooted up on the edge of the couch, trying to lessen the space between us.
“Regina, baby, I was thinking, no hoping that . . .”
“No!” She quickly yelled and closed her eyes for a moment. She sat further back in her chair. When she opened her eyes she said, “Let me finish before you speak.” She took a long, deep, runner's breath and blew the air out slowly. I taught her how to do that when we used to run together. Breathing the right way helps with stress and Regina is a person who seldom vents, so learning how to take the cleansing breaths helped her a lot.
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